Pacific Northwest Gardening: Rain and Gnats, 1 by tikipod

tikipod wrote:
Aloha, I'm Ang and I'm from Puget Sound. I come from a long line of gardeners. At 28 years old I'm only on my second year of gardening. I'm strictly a container garden and opted to really give it a go this year. Despite this years wacky weather I'm still determined to succeed. I've lost a few plants but thanks to this website and using the internet or books, I'm finding ways to solve these problems.

My first problem was wind and I lost a few herbs to that but my dad helped me put up a wind barrier. I picked a light colored fabric that will still send some wind through but not the full force that has been killing certain vegetables. So far it's helping a lot. Both my tangerine sage and bee balm had perked up after this, plus some care (pruning bad leaves, removing buds.)

Then I noticed some of my plants were drooping. I've cut back on my watering due to the rain despite the fact I have a covered deck, although I made sure my bee balm's soil didn't dry out completely. The past couple of days it has either been real nice or real muggy so I took the time to inspect my plants. I found several had loads of fungus gnats flying around. I put a layer of sand on the florals and herbs, then I watered them with a peroxide mix after reading that on here. My pineapple sage has completely uncurled and my bee balm is looking better too! My dad was really amazed.

I was all thrilled about the improvement until I saw this coming (in the picture.) That is rain coming.